Health Center in Gamarra
Architects
Sol89. María González and Juanjo López de la Cruz, and Francisco Marqués
Client
Servicio Andaluz de Salud. Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía
This project involves designing a medical center with 18 consultation rooms located within the interior of a 1970s urban block in Málaga—a space defined by rear façades and party walls, a domestic and private place. We propose enclosing the consultation rooms within a wall surrounding a courtyard, like two walled pavilions detached from the indiscreet world of windows, clotheslines, antennas, and air conditioning units that populate the inner façades of the surrounding residences. In this way, the consultation rooms are easily accessible, with no need for vertical circulation, always oriented toward our courtyard: a slow-paced time.
There is also a need to accommodate a series of auxiliary functions—administration, classrooms, libraries, meeting rooms… We see these spaces as lying somewhere between the public nature of the street and the private character of the consultation rooms. Therefore, we propose stacking them vertically, encouraging interaction between the building and the city that peers in from the ten-story avenue, full of traffic and speed: a fast, urban time.
The project emerges from the interplay between these two temporalities and spatial arrangements: the base and the tower. The former offers accessibility and quiet; the latter, presence and views over the city. Between these two moments, a fissure appears—a walkway that leads to the entrance.
